HWY-029: General Dome by Buke and Gase (180 gram vinyl LP)

$18.00

The initial vinyl pressing of General Dome sold out. To celebrate, we repressed 500 copies on 180 gram vinyl—an "audiophile quality" edition, which we think the band's fans might appreciate. The 180 gram edition will also be available in stores but note there are no special markings or stickers on the cover indicating the higher quality pressing, so you will have to order from Brassland to be sure of getting this edition. This vinyl album includes download codes so you can acquire a copy of the record in MP3 format & a bonus download of the Function Falls EP.

Now a bit of info about the record... Hot on the heels of the Function Falls EP, our favorite self-invented duo Buke & Gase returned with General Dome. Pitchfork named one track, "Hiccup," Best New Track and called it a "mobilising, bodily cry."

It can be said three notable changes led to the new sounds that are encapsulated on this new album:

First Thing: In 2011, Aron Sanchez moved from New York City to his home in upstate Hudson, NY, and Arone Dyer thusly followed, therein marking a large geographical change. She then began riding a motorcycle, the obvious next step from racing and building bicycles, and has been exploring this new form of excitement vigorously and often. She claims it comes across in the new music.

Second Thing: They rented a cavernous empty room in between heavily used railroad tracks, warehouses and the Hudson River, and set up a temporary recording studio, a far cry from their previous digs, Aron's tight little basement space. The recordings have hints of their surroundings, such as natural reverb, train horns, rumbling annoyances, and the size of the new space also led to a grander songwriting style. As per usual, they recorded and mixed it themselves. During this time, Aron purchased a myriad of new guitar pedals in his ever-enduring chase for the "perfect gase* sound" which, to this date, he has yet to find.

Third Thing: Out with the old and in with the new. A buke** creation by their friend now replaces the wooden-toy that formerly occupied Arone's hands. This new "battle axe" is made of steel salvaged from an automobile, with a halved pipe acting as the neck.

Stream the album here:

Check out the video for the title track here:

SONGS

1. Houdini Crush 2. Hiccup 3. In the Company of Fish 4. General Dome 5. Hard Times 6. Sturtle 7. Twisting the Lasso of Truth 8. You Do Yours First 9. Split Like a Lip, No Blood on the Beard 10. Cyclopean 11. Contortion in Training 12. My Best Andre Shot 13. Metazoa

"On each of their releases to date, Buke & Gase have never been anything less than absolutely thrilling." - Pitchfork

Buke and Gase have this vague sense of unease. Like someone, somewhere is always watching. Do a Google image search for the band's new album title, General Dome, and you'll come across images that instill ideas of paranoia and surveillance such as security cameras and rockets being launched. In times like these, when governments can freely survey the citizenry's every action and our lives become increasingly less private, people are often drawn to code. Take a look at Buke and Gase's album cover above. Its minimalist design could mean nothing at all. Perhaps this would be the case, if this were any other band than Buke and Gase.

Inspired by a recent Sol LeWitt exhibition at the Dia Beacon museum in Beacon, NY, Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez started brainstorming about coded imagery. They decided to build a system of images that would dictate the direction of the artwork, which lead them to creating a new alphabet they could write with, not totally different from the way they create their music. They built a graphical alphabet that the artwork is made of, the code of which will be available on their website once it's released. There are more coded images like this throughout the packaging.